


Everything I Want to Forget (Everything I Need to Remember)

by GythaOgg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Coda, Dean Winchester Has Feelings, Dean Winchester Needs to Remove Head From Ass, Emotionally Hurt Castiel (Supernatural), F/M, M/M, Memory Alteration, Naomi redemption arc, Post-Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Sam Winchester Ships Castiel/Dean Winchester, Winchester Coping Mechanisms (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24183901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GythaOgg/pseuds/GythaOgg
Summary: Coda set just after the breakup scene in S15 Ep 3, The Rupture. Cas has finally had it with Dean's bullshit, and takes a rather extreme measure to move past his broken heart. This pushes Dean to finally Face His Feelings, but is it too late?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Kudos: 74





	Everything I Want to Forget (Everything I Need to Remember)

Castiel was a being of immeasurable patience, but immeasurable is not the same as infinite, and Dean had finally pushed him too far. Too many times, he’d blamed the angel for things they all shared responsibility for. Too many times, he’d pointed a finger in anger, when Dean himself was the problem. Yes, Cas had made his fair share of bad decisions, but they all did - it was one of the things Team Free Will was known for, apparently. None of them had wanted to see what was happening to the boy they all loved so much, the son they had raised. As hunters, they always considered the worst-case scenario, but none of them had seen this coming. And now Jack was gone, and Mary was gone, and even after all of Chuck’s terrible machinations were revealed, Dean still blamed Cas.

So, Cas made his decision. If Dean couldn’t let go of his resentment, if he wanted to continue taking out his grief and rage on the one person who loved him unconditionally, then the hunter could just find another punching bag. Cas would always love The Righteous Man above all others, but if Dean couldn’t even look him in the face, what was the point? With his powers failing, Castiel knew he would likely grow weaker, more mortal, and he preferred to make that transition safely and gradually. He’d been suddenly human and homeless and hungry before, and he certainly wasn’t interested in repeating that process. If he wasn’t welcome at Dean’s side, then he would return to Heaven, and salvage what he could of his angelic family. He regretted that this meant he would likely lose Sam as well, but if anyone would understand, it was Sam. He’d reached his breaking point with Dean more than once, after all.

His confrontation with Dean had gone about as well as he expected, so he left the Bunker and returned to Heaven. He kept himself busy, working to make amends with the other angels. But still Castiel couldn’t stop thinking about Dean. Even mourning for Jack was no reprieve, since most of his memories of his son also involved Dean and Sam. He tried to distract himself with the plans for restructuring Heaven, but his mind kept returning to Dean. No matter how hurt he was, how angry at Dean’s unreasonable resentment, he had to admit that he still missed him. The other angels could sense this struggle, and he saw pity in his siblings’ faces. Eventually, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He didn’t expect to ever have happiness, but he had to find some kind of peace.

Always one to go to extremes, Castiel settled on the very last thing anyone would expect . . . he went to Naomi, and he asked her to erase all his memories of Dean. To her credit, Naomi refused, ashamed of the way she had wreaked havoc with Cas’s mind in the past. But he persisted, and the third time he came to her, she finally agreed. Naomi did insist, however, that the memories of Dean be stored, not erased, so that Cas could retrieve them if he ever changed his mind. 

The process was nowhere near as painful as his previous sessions with Naomi had been. She was gentle, careful, and delicate in her task this time. Castiel emerged with a workable timeline of the past 12 years, minus several particularly important details. He still recalled much of his history with the Winchesters, for instance, but only Sam, Bobby, and Mary. He didn’t recall saving Dean from Hell, nor any interaction with him since then. In fact, he didn’t even realize Sam had a brother, aside from Adam. Cas thought his connection to the Winchesters originated purely in Sam’s destiny as Lucifer’s true vessel, which Cas betrayed Heaven to prevent, once he and Sam became friends. He believed Sam was the one who taught him about free will, and that he himself killed Dick Roman, and was then flung into Purgatory alone. His memory said that Sam raised Jack on his own while Cas was in the Empty. He recalled fighting the other Earth’s Michael, but believed that Michael kept the same vessel until Jack killed him. All of his memories of Dean were either purged entirely, or replaced with someone else (usually Sam).

As far as Cas was concerned, after he killed Belphagor and helped close the Hellmouth, he returned to Heaven to reconcile his feelings over Chuck’s betrayal and reconnect with the remaining angels. He also made it a point to visit Bobby, Mary, and John, on Sam’s behalf. (Naomi had been careful to warn everyone not to mention Dean, so Castiel’s time in Heaven went relatively smoothly.)

While there, Cas learned that nearly all remaining angels (even runaways and those in exile), had returned to Heaven in the wake of Chuck’s Big Reveal. Their total population was now 27, not including Michael. It was known that Michael / Adam had left the Cage, but no one had heard from him. Naomi continued to run Heaven, where they were attempting to consolidate everyone’s personal heavens into a linked community, to keep Heaven going with limited angelic power. Castiel did his part to assist in the process, spending several weeks among his angelic family, stitching Heavens together and attending planning meetings. It was boring, but necessary work, and Cas felt he owed it to the angels.

With Heaven 3.0 up and running, Cas eventually returns to Earth to check on Sam, but an angel named Melindriel stops by the bunker first, intercepting Sam on his way home from a supply run. Sympathetic to Castiel and the Winchesters (and a romantic at heart), she warns Sam that Cas has chosen to erase Dean from his memory. She also fills Sam in on the new mission statement from Heaven. There are no more wars or resentments between angels and mankind – they’re all in this together, now that Chuck has completely abandoned them. Nephalim are no longer forbidden, and Melindriel reveals that the remaining angels will now be encouraged to take vessels and forge relationships with human mates, in an effort to avoid extinction. She makes clear that Cas’s memories can be easily restored, but only at Castiel’s explicit request. Simply seeing Dean will not bring his memories back, though spending a lot of time with Dean might confuse Cas, since their Profound Bond will pull at his grace and he won’t know why.

Always a little fascinated by angels (and particularly by pretty brunette angels), Sam draws their conversation out a bit. But once Melindriel leaves, Sam gets back on the road and calls Dean. 

“Dude, I need you to leave the bunker for a few hours. Like right now.”

“Excuse me? You pick up a hot date at the grocery store, Sammy?”

“I’ll explain later, but you gotta get lost. Now. Take a drive.”

“Jeez, OK OK. This better be good. Call me when it’s safe to come back.”

Dean is just barely out of the bunker by the time Sam returns home, and Cas arrives only moments later. He keeps looking around the war room but clearly has no idea what he’s looking for. Cas confesses that he feels ‘off’ somehow, like there’s a piece of himself missing. He compares it to when he lost his grace, but he shrugs it off, chalking it up to a side-effect of Chuck’s abandonment. He assumes all the angels feel this now. (None of the other angels have corrected him - mostly out of pity.) Cas updates Sam on how Bobby, Mary and John are doing in the afterlife, and tells Sam about the new policies in Heaven regarding humanity, Nephilim, and living on Earth. He even suggests introducing Sam to one of the friendlier angels. “After all, Sam – you’re an exceptional human. You’re an archangel’s true vessel by lineage, your soul was purified by the Trials, and you’re a very attractive man. You even have experience raising a Nephilim. What more could an angel ask for in a mate?” Sam blushes and immediately changes the subject, asking Cas if he’s planning to find a human mate. Cas doesn’t answer, but he looks like he’s eaten something that’s still moving.

Sam scoffs at the expression on Castiel’s face. “Hey, you brought it up.”

Cas sighs, still scowling, but attempts to explain. Though he feels some obligation to reproduce, given the limited number of angels, his experiences with dating and sex have not been . . . positive, so he’s very hesitant to pursue a woman.

“I’ve always been more attracted to men, anyway,” he mumbles. Sam just smiles to himself and steers the conversation elsewhere.

An hour after Cas leaves, Sam sits Dean down and goes over everything Melindriel told him. Dean is predictably furious and hurt that Cas would wipe him from his memory like that, but Sam interrupts his angry rant, exasperated.

“Maybe you should take it as an indication of just how badly you fucked up this time. You do kinda treat him like crap, Dean.” He finally asks Dean point-blank if he wants a relationship with Castiel going forward, and if so, what kind. They fight, of course (because Dean has a black belt in denial), but after a few minutes, Sam just sort of deflates. He shakes his head, his eyes wet, and takes a deep breath.

“Dean, this is exactly the bullshit that got you into this situation. This is the end of the line, dude. You only have two options: You can continue the way things are now and lose Cas forever, or you can man up and tell Cas how you actually fucking feel. Convince him to get his memories back, and maybe you two can work things out. But that’s it. Pass this up and you’re never gonna get another chance.”

Dean splutters, indignant, but before he can get a word out, Sam just gets up and leaves the room.

Dean cycles through reflexive anger, then self-pity, then fear, then dread. In a process that is absolutely trademark Dean Winchester, he drinks, he cries, he throws things, he drives. For once, however, it’s a surprisingly short process. Two days after his fight with Sam, he comes back to the bunker and sits down across the kitchen table from his brother. He starts out playing with the paper towel in front of him, but soon slaps his hands down on the table and looks Sam in the eye. 

“So, turns out I’m in love with Cas, and I want him back, no matter what. I’m done freakin out. How do we do this?”

Sam’s eyebrows slowly crawl up his forehead, and there’s a stunned silence when Dean stops speaking. Then a loud laugh bursts from Sam’s mouth, and he hops out of his chair to wrap his arms around his brother. Dean squirms and tries to shove him away, mumbling about “sappy bullshit” and “Jesus, fuck off!”, but he’s got a grin on his face when Sam steps back.

The brothers sit down to strategize like they’re on a hunt. Sam makes lists, they brainstorm, they look through angel lore, and by dinner time, they have come up with a game plan to convince Cas. Sam prays to him and asks Cas to come meet him in a park in Lebanon. A few minutes after Cas arrives, Dean pulls up in the Impala, directly in Cas’s line of sight.

“Sam, someone else is driving your car?” Cas asks, so shocked that it comes out nearly in a whisper.

“Uhh, yeah Cas. Do you recognize that someone?” He doesn’t, so Sam very gently breaks the news that Dean is his brother, and that Cas has known him for more than 10 years. The seraph doesn’t believe him, but he agrees to ride back to the bunker with them and let them explain. Cas gets into the Impala and immediately feels a strange sense of déjà vu at the view from the backseat.

They settle in at the bunker and the boys tell the angel, piece by piece, where Dean fits in to their shared history. Mostly they take turns describing the events of the last decade or so, in chronological order, with Cas stopping them to ask questions or offer the version his memory has supplied.

As evidence, Dean pulls up dozens of photos on his phone; some the three of them, a few with Bobby, or Mary, or Jack, some of just Dean and Cas, and many shots of Castiel alone. Cas looking out over a lake. Cas driving his Lincoln Continental. One taken from a distance, with Cas standing on a front porch in a cardigan, holding a woman’s hand. One of Cas in his blue vest, through the window of the Gas & Sip. Cas proudly showing off his fake FBI badge. Cas holding a giant anvil off the ground. Cas standing under a streetlight at night, next to a phone booth. Cas lying on a table in a cabin, eyes closed.

By the time they start to discuss more recent events, Cas believes that Dean is who they say he is, but he doesn’t understand why he would choose to erase his own memory. Dean clams up, while Sam tries to tactfully explain why he thinks Cas did what he did. Apparently, he’s a little too tactful.

“I still fail to see why a fight with a belligerent friend, no matter how hurtful, would elicit such a drastic response.”

Sam shoots a pointed, expectant look at Dean, but his brother is chewing on his fingernails, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

“Hang on, I have an idea!” Sam exclaims, and jumps out of his chair. He returns a few minutes later, carrying the last few Carver Edlund books.

Dean rolls his eyes when he recognizes them. “Oh for fuck’s sake, Sam! Why do we even HAVE those?” He shudders, and his fingers twitch like he wants to yank the books away, but he allows Castiel to scan through them, reading at an inhuman pace.

The angel appears to be even more confused by the books’ depiction. “You and I were romantically involved?” he asks Dean, squinting.

Dean grimaces, head leaning towards one shoulder. “No.” Cas and Sam both sit still, waiting for Dean to continue. He glances at his brother, then Cas, then the floor. Cas. The floor. Sam. The floor.

Finally, he blurts out, “But we should have been”. Then quieter, “Except I had my head so far up my ass, I was the only one who didn’t see that.”

Cas’s stormy blue eyes focus on Dean’s face, and he tilts his head, examining the man closely. “And what has changed since then?”

Pinned in place by Cas’s attention, Dean blinks once, twice. He looks uncharacteristically helpless. “You wiped me out of your life, Cas. I wouldn’t admit how I felt, ‘cause I was afraid I’d fuck things up and lose you, but then I lost you anyway.”

Dean casts his eyes to the left and right, his hands lifting briefly off his jeans. He sighs and drops his voice to a mumble. “You look at me like you’ve never seen me before. Like you’re looking right through me, and I don’t know what to do with that. I can’t live like that!” He lifts his chin and meets Castiel’s eyes again. “Even if you tell me it’s too little too late, and you don’t want me. At least you’d still . . . you’d still know me.” 

There’s a lot of prolonged, silent eye contact. These two are old pros at the staring contest, but it goes on even longer than usual, and Sam wonders if that’s a good sign or bad. It’s hard to tell with Cas. Sam studies the ceiling, the bookshelf, his shoes. He starts to imagine elevator music playing in the background. After a while, it gets so uncomfortable that Sam is about to clear his throat, and that’s when Cas finally stands up. “I need to think about this,” he announces, and heads towards his room.

In the morning, Cas finds Melandriel at the kitchen table with Sam. The hunter is sitting at one end of the table, the angel at the next chair down, and they’re both leaning in as they speak. Sam’s left hand is flat on the table between them, with Melandriel’s hand curled a few centimeters away, almost-but-not-quite touching Sam.

_Interesting_ , Cas thinks, smirking at the back of Sam’s head. “Hello, sister,” he says politely, and nods at Melandriel. “Good morning, Sam.” Sam sits up straighter at the sound of Cas’s voice, his hand sliding back a few inches as he turns toward the doorway. “Hey, Cas! Morning.” He glances back and forth between the two angels, then gets up to make another pot of coffee.

Cas takes a seat across the table from Melandriel and arches an eyebrow at her, still smiling. Her honey-brown eyes linger on Sam’s back before she looks to her brother again, shrugging one shoulder. Castiel is impressed . . . it’s a remarkably human gesture for someone who’s only had a vessel for a few days. _She’ll do well on Earth_ , he thinks. 

Melandriel explains that she was the one who gave Sam the head’s up about Castiel’s memory wipe, and reminds him that he can reverse the process, but that it will give him both the good and the bad memories. Cas studies Melandriel’s face, searching for something, before he asks, “Forgive me, but how are you involved in this? You’re not a cupid, and most angels have had . . . ulterior motives, when approaching me.”

The angel looks sad for a moment, but recovers quickly, and reaches out to cover Castiel’s hand with her own. “I know you’ve had a lot of conflict with Heaven over the years, but the days of Zachariah and Rafael are over. Those of us who are left are embracing free will, compassion, compromise. We’re remembering what love is. This is a new world we’re living in, and you saw it before any of us, Castiel. Plus,” she says, suddenly looking a bit bashful, “I’ve always kind of been rooting for you and Dean”. 

Cas’s eyebrows shoot up, and Sam snorts into his coffee cup. Melandriel sits back and plays with the mostly full cup in front of her.

“Well, everyone sort of knew. I mean, we thought we knew. We assumed.” She pauses, looking over to Sam for help, but Sam just buries his nose back in his coffee. “It was pretty obvious.” She goes on to say that most of Heaven (and Hell too, apparently) has long been aware that Cas & Dean have feelings for one another, and many believed they were already a couple. Until recently, it was a cause for derision among the angels, but now that the Heavenly Host and Humanity are all on the same team, Cas is considered somewhat of a trailblazer, a maverick with foresight. He and Dean have Heaven’s blessing, as it were, and the general assumption is that Cas will retrieve his memories, make up with Dean, and live the rest of their days together.

By the time Melandriel is finished, Castiel looks a little dazed. “Thank you for telling me, but this is not a foregone conclusion. I have not yet made my decision; whatever Heaven’s opinion may be. I need to speak with Dean, alone.”

So, Cas wanders off to find Dean. Dean is happy to see him, and rather desperate to convince the angel to get his memories back. Much of their conversation is a rehash of last night, but now that it’s just the two of them, Dean seems to feel more comfortable elaborating.

“I’m sorry I kept lashing out at you, Cas. I know I’ve been a big bag of dicks lately, but I’ve been thinking about that stuff a lot, and I figure it was mostly me being scared. Well, shame too, maybe. I kinda always thought I was straight, ya know?”

Castiel tries not to react to Dean’s assertion, but his face must betray some of his skepticism, because Dean stops, sidetracked. “What!? What’s with the eyebrow?”

When Cas just schools his expression back to stoic, shaking his head, Dean shrugs it off and pushes on. “Thing is . . . I don’t know why I was so freaked out by the idea. Look, I know I’m not the most politically correct jackass on the planet, but I got no problem with anybody being gay. ME bein’ gay, though . . . Anyway, I’m 40 freakin’ years old. Figure it’s about time I drop the bullshit and be honest with myself, right? And honest with you.” Dean’s voice gradually becomes more hushed as his bluster fades, and he looks Castiel in the eyes again. “I put you through a lot of crap, Cas – I know that – but I can’t live with myself if I just let you disappear. You don’t know what I was like when you were in the Empty. It was . . . it was bad. I can’t go through that again, man.” Gruff voice breaking, Dean squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. When he looks at Cas again, his eyes are fierce. “I need you. And you need me! You love me, goddammit, I know you do!” 

Cas feels inexplicably drawn to Dean. He can feel his grace pulling him towards the man like a tether. Nevertheless, he’s still having a hard time connecting to the things he’s been told, the things he’s read, the photos he’s seen. It’s not that he doesn’t believe the Winchesters, he just feels somewhat removed from the situation. He doesn’t remember ever feeling . . . love. Not romantic love, anyway. Could Dean (and Sam, and Melandriel, and apparently most of Heaven and Hell) be wrong about this?

Dean must notice the reluctance painted on Castiel’s face, because he leans in and resorts to flat-out begging. “Just get your memories back, Cas. Please? You can tell me to fuck off if you want, once you remember. And hell, maybe you will. But shouldn’t you have all the information first, before you throw me to the wolves?”

Dean is right, of course. Castiel spent thousands of years as a military strategist. He makes measured, informed decisions, and now that he has new information, it’s only logical to re-evaluate his path. Ultimately, he and Melandriel return to Heaven to get his memories back. It’s a simple process, but he leaves Naomi’s office overwhelmed and disoriented, his memory of the last dozen years rearranging itself to accommodate a new main character. THE main character. The Righteous Man. The love of Castiel’s long, long life. The asshole who repeatedly broke Castiel’s heart, who kept refusing to see the truth. The stubborn idiot who never once spoke up to stop Cas from leaving, even though his soul screamed for Cas to stay.

He’s angry with Dean. He’s exhausted; tired of the games, sick of the years of second-guessing himself, of his hope being dashed again and again. But this time is different. This time, he has something he’s never had before: Dean’s honest, earnest intent. This time, Dean’s words match the song in his soul, and Castiel’s grace is humming with expectation. Now that he remembers, he knows that Sam and Dean were not exaggerating. He knows the Carver Edlund stories were not misinterpretations. If he were human, Castiel would call them soulmates, but there is no word for their pairing. They are wholly unique amongst all of God’s creations, and Castiel will not forfeit what is rightfully his.

When Melandriel sees that he’s made this decision, she’s delighted. As his shoulders square and his spine straightens, her smile grows broader and brighter, and Cas half-expects her to hug him. _Yes_ , he thinks, _she’s going to fit right in on Earth. Perhaps with Sam?_ _They’d be good for each other._

Cas returns to the bunker with a pecan pie and a six pack of Dean’s favorite beer. Sam grins proudly when he spots him in the map room, and unlike Melandriel, he does wrap Cas up in a hug.

“About time, man. I’m happy for you guys,” he mutters, then immediately makes an excuse to leave the bunker for the night. Cas spares a second to wonder if Sam will have company, but decides he has more important things to focus on right now, and heads into the kitchen.

Dean’s standing at the sink, but his head snaps up when he hears Cas’s footsteps. His eyes drop to the beer and pie in Cas’s hands, and Dean presses his lips together on a smile, suddenly shy.

“Those for me?” Cas nods. “Is that like, the Dean Winchester equivalent of flowers on a first date?” Cas smirks and raises an eyebrow but does not speak yet. Dean huffs, his neck and ears turning pink. “Soooo . . . you remember everything?” Another nod from the angel. “Aaaannd?”

Cas hangs back, looking very serious.

“I’m older than you can imagine, Dean. I’ve waited far too long for this. If we agree to move forward, you must show respect . . . for me, for yourself, and for our relationship. No more drunken one-night stands. No more hiding. No more lies, from either of us. If we’re going to do this, we do it right, or not at all. Is that clear?”

Dean’s eyes darken at the angel’s stern tone, pupils dilating and smile widening. He’s always loved it when Cas gets all Badass Angel of the Lord-ish. The hunter clenches his jaw and breathes through his nose, willing himself to calm the hell down, and nods.

“Yeah Cas, it’s clear. I’m all in, man.” He takes a deep breath and lifts his chin just a bit. “Just . . . just don’t take off on me again, OK?”

Finally, Cas steps forward and smiles that smile that’s only ever been for Dean. “I have no intention of leaving, Dean. There’s nowhere in the universe I’d rather be.”


End file.
